


echoes of your name around my mind

by JaneAire



Category: The Dragon Prince (Cartoon)
Genre: Aftermath of Torture, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst with a Happy Ending, Eventual Happy Ending, M/M, Misunderstandings, Sharing a Bed, Sharing a Room, Slow Burn, Xenophobia
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-10-03
Updated: 2018-12-19
Packaged: 2019-07-24 11:43:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 11,413
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16174391
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JaneAire/pseuds/JaneAire
Summary: “You're awfully honest when you're sleep deprived,” Runaan noted with a belated snort.“Shut up.”“No, keep going. Tell me about my eyes.”“I don't imagine your eyes,” Gren replied honestly, because what did he have to hide? What was there to be embarrassed about? Runaan was a faceless entity for Gren to daydream until he broke them free.“Oh?”“I imagine your lips.”| AU where Viren tortures Runaan just a little longer. Long enough that he and Gren can plan an escape. And, of course, maybe fall in love.Alternate title: OH MY GOD THEY WERE CELLMATES |





	1. they say he's gone too far this time

**Author's Note:**

> Key kids archive still isn't letting me do notes in the tags so here's the housekeeping:  
> ☆ I write in vignettes--passages are sometimes out of order, cut up, or short  
> ☆ I did NOT intend for this to be so long but it will only go on for maybe two more chapters at most. I'm thinking another solid chapter and then a soft epilogue  
> ☆ TW: there are mild scenes of off-screen torture (everything is shown from Gren’s POV) and references to xenophobia and racism (toward elves). Runaan also makes a few ableist jokes. Buckle down.  
> ☆ Extreme canon divergence  
> ☆ OH MY GOD THEY WERE CELLMATES

For many weeks, his name was Silence, until he wasn't. And when he wasn't Silence--when he became Runaan--he became little more than a dollhouse toy for Gren’s morning daydreams, a place to escape while he was shackled, arms and calves aching in desperate tremors from his restraints, metamorphosed into little more than mush. When the guards released him and lead him to his cot, giving him just enough food to exist, not nearly enough to induce a production of energy in his system. They had successfully turned him useless, pliant and limp. If he had been forced to fight, he'd be defeated. 

They'd succeeded in breaking him.

Yet Runaan’s voice, understandably irritable with a lilting foreign accent to his voice, musical and mature, classic and refined, kept him sane. Kept him steady. 

Irritable was good. Gren could work with irritable. Irritable meant he had the excess energy to have emotions. Irritable meant he wasn't ready to die just yet. 

Every handful of information he received about Runaan went into his daydream bank, fantasizing how'd they'd grow to close friends during their exciting escape, the two of them rejourneying out on their quest to find the young princes. In Gren’s head, he was as handsome and refined as his voice, tall and dark and strong and brave. More determined and loyal, more patriotic than Gren could ever hope to be. Runaan sounded like he could unseat Viren from the throne as soon as his shackles could be undone. Why else was he constantly chained? Dangerous to Viren meant he was strong, wise, heroic.

Runaan could save him, together. 

\----

When he spoke, he was upset to find his own voice dry and gravelly, hoarse and uncomfortable from neglect. If he returned to Amaya’s service, he hoped it may return to normal. 

“Hey, uh, pal--sir?--I'm not even sure if you're a _sir_ , but, well, you sure scream like one--but, uh, not that I listen to your screams, but, you, uh, okay over there?” 

Gren pressed himself against the damp wood of his cell door, the barred window pressing lines against his grimed rose cheeks as he strained to listen, attempted to get a glance at the door beside him without success. He'd tried to get glimpses of his fellow prisoner, but his view from both his cell and his fetter were obscured. The screams--the only thing he could hear--were masculine, without doubt. It was all Gren had to go on that someone was even alive. 

Still, the silence crept on in the darkness, wading out under his door and filling his boots with a dread he hadn't known for quite some time. 

“I mean--I know you're not doing okay. I know that's a stupid question. I know what he's doing to you--well, actually, I _don't_ , but we could talk about it? Or not talk about it? We can forget about it and talk about something else. I'm just checking in to make sure--.”

He stopped there, words catching on his sticky dry tongue, feeling a fresh wave of shame wash over him. _Make sure you're still alive_ was sort of a shitty sentence. When they'd first been paired up, Amaya had been quick to notice Gren’s impressive ability to talk his foot into his own mouth, running in circles till he got himself in trouble. Less was more, he knew, and yet-- 

“I sound like a jerk, I'm sorry,” he continued with a huffed, dry laugh, air escaping through his raw throat like grains of sand. “I know you've got it way worse than me, I'm just--I'm desperate to know someone else is down here with me. You can lean on me, and we can get through this.” 

Silence, again, the only companion to solitary darkness until melancholy gave way to despair, melting away in Gren’s lungs until he let his tired legs go, dropping to his knees behind the door. His whole world, then, was this solitary cell, the bog of his thoughts until he went mad with them. 

Now he knew what everyone had meant when they'd said Gren’s incessant chatter would drive them crazy. Payback, he supposed, for being annoying. He'd suffer through more until Amaya came for him. 

He'd be useless to her by then. 

“I'm sorry,” he whispered, the drought in his throat lifted and instead replaced with wet emotion. “I know I'm like, the worst dungeon buddy on the planet. I don't know what you did to get down here--I certainly didn't do anything. I just--I'm not used to feeling this alone, and I want you and I to make it out of here as sane as when we entered. You don't have to tell me what Viren wants with you, just even your name--”

“ _Stop_.”

He’d dreamt it. 

He'd had to have. He dreamt it the same way his mind conjured Amaya’s strong hands untying his bonds when his legs went numb, conjured his mother's rough ones cupping his cheeks and spooning in stew when the hunger felt fatal. His mind had conjured a voice now to stave off the insanity that threatened to overtake him like the silence filling up his boots and soaking through his shorts. 

Still, he forced himself to his feet, eyes roaming wild across the strip of dungeon he was allowed access of sight, upset to see only the same barren space lit by the few sconces present. 

“Was--was that you?” Gren asked, voice breathless with wonder and a giddy flicker in his chest that could only be felt as hope. 

Then, again, a matchstick spark of, “silence,” spoken into the air like a spell by the cool still that followed. 

Despite the hiss that the words were spoken in, Gren couldn't help the laughter bubbling out of his throat, wet and young and hopeful.  
“I'm that annoying, huh?” he huffed good naturedly, smile splitting his chapped lips.

“Are you deaf as well as dumb?” 

“I'm Gren,” he laughed, giddy at being able to introduce himself to the silence that lived here with him, pleased that the silence was talking back. 

“You're going to alert the guards if you keep chattering like this.” 

Charming. 

“This stairwell goes up two stories and leads to a door. We could be screaming and not even the guards could hear a peep. Viren banks on that, sticking us down here.” 

The silence resumed. A minute, then longer. 

“Uh, buddy?” 

It rose to his neck. 

“Well, uh, I'm here. If you wanna talk. We're on the same side.”

\----

Gren was nearly asleep when he heard it again, a whisper of a lilting song. 

“You say the guards can't hear us?” 

The venom from his voice had gone, replaced by a natural sort of curiosity that made Gren’s face split into a grin. His voice was softer this way, accent lacking the hard bark and bite of the city dialect. He must've been from out in the country, nearer to the border, and Gren’s mind constructed his visage with the forest at the forefront of his consciousness. Bitter and hard cut, like Amaya, but good. Why else would Viren be torturing him? 

Gren, half asleep with the deprivation, nodded. “Yeah. We're floors below the residential area of the castle, regardless. Keep talkin’ and I promise Viren won't so much as mention it tomorrow.” 

To Gren’s surprise, instead of silence, he was greeted with a non-committal hum. He realized a few moments too late that the fact that he'd heard it at all assumed that he was meant to hear it, that it had been amplified for his benefit. 

The silence bled out of his boots. 

“What's your name?” Gren breathed, cracked hands looping around the rusted bars, ignoring the sting he felt with the cold pressed against the sensitive areas of his skin. 

The tide came back in. 

\----

The next day, after the screaming stopped--somehow, even harder to listen to than before, remembering the soft lilt to the hmm that had echoed around the dungeon the night before--his cell mate’s voice sounded, wet and bitter, just after the door had echoed closed behind Viren: “You were right. He didn't mention it.”

\---

“What's your name?” Gren tried again after the guards had locked him in his cell, spoon scraping against the bottom of his bowl as he finished whatever scraps they'd prepared for him. 

“You're allowed free rein of your cell,” the stranger observed into the dim darkness. “Why? Who are you?” 

“I told you. I'm Gren.” 

There was a dry silence, one where he could catch even Amaya’s dry glance in his mind's eye.

“Why were you imprisoned?” the man elaborated, dry and unimpressed. 

“I was a commander tasked with finding the princes. I was relieved of my duty.” 

The _hmm_ from last night--the one that echoed in Gren’s head, deep in the night, nearly positive he'd hallucinated the whole thing--sounded again, loud for Gren’s benefit, like a gift. Gren’s whole job was communication. Granted, he didn't do it quite so well on his own, but he wasn't going to miss the purpose and function of someone else's. That _hmm_ was important, special, Gren knew. For him. 

“What about you?” Gren asked, tripping over words this time. “What are you in for?” 

He expected silence, expected to have to push _I won't judge_ into the air, but the stranger surprisingly replied. 

“Because my name is George.” 

“Uh, what?”

“Much the same as you, it seems,” he sighed, voice void of venom but filled with exhaustion. “However, I haven't quite been relieved of duty yet.” 

“Viren,” Gren sighed. “What does he want from you?” 

“What do fools always want?” the lyric voice sighed, voice near wind, near water, near music. Gren let it melt into him, a blanket to hold through the night when he had none. Companionship. “Knowledge that they have no business possessing.” 

“And you won't give it to him?” 

“Never.” 

The hate in his voice made Gren pause. 

“You're honorable, doing your country this service. When Amaya comes for me, I'll make sure she frees you, too. I won't leave here without you.” 

\----

Once again, Gren was nearly asleep when he felt the next rustle of wind, voice speaking into the air as if commanding the very world around him. Gren would never tire of this voice. 

“My name is Runaan.” 

Gren’s smile lit the darkness. “It's so very nice to meet you, Runaan. We're going to escape.” 

A beat of silence. Then:

“Don't make me promises you can't keep, _Gren_.” 

\----

Four more nights passed. 

Gren asked more questions which Runaan cryptically answered, giving Gren little insight about his background or his actual purpose here in the dungeon. Likewise, four days passed in which Gren lied useless chained the wall, legs weak as he listened to Runaan scream with every visit Viren made to him. Though Gren tried to call to him after these sessions, Runaan stayed silent. 

Silent for two days. 

Gren cried each night until Viren returned, and the screams began again, and Gren knew that Runaan was alive, but barely. Alive and possibly unable to speak. 

Night four was unbearable. 

“Find someway to let me know if you're alright,” he whispered into the darkness, staring at the way the candle flickered on his bedside table, watching the wax fall. It wasn't said loud enough to be heard, but, in the darkness, there was a response. 

“This Amaya you're waiting on--it's the great general, isn't it? You're her right hand.” 

_“Runaan_ ,” Gren whined, bolting upright in the dark. 

“Yes, let's not get weepy, you're not alone in the dark anymore. Sincerely, how is someone with your emotional range allowed your rank and control?” 

Gren huffed a tired laugh, shifting himself against the stone wall, knees drawn to his chest from where he perched on the thin cot.  
“Someone's cranky.” 

“Yes, well, I thought my lung was punctured. Forgive me if I've been absent.” 

Gren’s stomach lurched. _“What?”_

“Fear not,” he assured dryly, voice floating around the damp space. “Viren wanted to make sure I wouldn't die _too_ soon. It's just a broken rib.” 

Gren felt the shame curl up inside him again. He'd complain into the darkness about the solidarity of the cell when Runaan was struggling to make it through the night. 

“Runaan, I--” 

“I said, let's not get weepy, Commander. It was hard enough not responding to your constant calling the past two nights.”

Gren felt himself smiling despite his guilt. “I wasn't going to let you forget about me that soon.” 

“Yes, well, impossible seeing as we're practically chained together. I know you're snoring better now than the beat of my own heart.” 

Even the way he said _heart_ was lyrical, all open vowels and Gren’s tired mind conjured up the motion of pink lips curling around the word heart. 

“Keep your voice down!” Gren teased. “The last thing Viren needs is new ideas for torturing you.” 

A mirthless snort tore it's way into the air. “He just might get me to talk if it meant you'd stop. I still half believe you're my night warden.” 

Under Gren’s own laugh, he heard a huffed exhale of air, enough to let him know Runaan had laughed, for possibly since the first time in the weeks they'd been stuck together. 

“We're on the same side,” Gren assured in a soft, sincere voice. “We're together in this. I promise.” 

“Does the general tolerate your clinginess?” 

“Only because I'm so handsome.” 

“Ah. I knew the universe had to bless you with something to make up for that intolerable and incessant chatter.” 

“ _Rude!_ ” Gren pouted. 

In the darkness, the room echoed around the lullaby song of Runaan’s laugh. 

\---- 

“How do you make it through the night?” 

Runaan let out a tired groan, a distant tinkling of chains let him know he'd shifted, somehow. Gren knew from their conversations he was always fettered to the wall (“Geez, I'm surprised your arms haven't fallen off yet” and “Yes, I'm rather surprised myself. Soon enough.”) 

“Don't you ever sleep, Commander?” 

“Some of us are beautiful without beauty sleep,” Gren teased into the darkness, biting on his lip at the humor. 

“Some of us are hoping to pass in our sleep, so shut it.”

“Hey, C'mon. You can't talk like that.” 

“I'm dead sooner or later, and I'm a rather impatient man.” 

“Runaan,” Gren chided, only to earn another groan. 

“Stop pouting my name like that. You sound just like--” 

There was a wet sort of choking sound, disguised as a cough, but it seemed Runaan’s sleep depravity gave way to back story.

“Who?” Gren urged excitedly, scooting so that he was against the bars of the door, pressing pink cheeks against the iron. Comical, half wishing Runaan could see him, even despite his disheveled appearance. 

Runaan chose silence again. 

\----

“I think of my mom a lot,” Gren admitted into the darkness. “When this feels hard. When I feel like I should give up.” 

“You've given up, in case you haven't noticed,” Runaan spat, making Gren flinch in the dark. “Everyday they unchain you and throw you in a room and you don't even try to fight.” 

“I'd lose,” Gren admitted. “There's no point. I'd die trying.” 

“That's what you're _supposed_ to do.” 

Gren had accepted that he and Runaan were a little different at this point, but sometimes the difference felt like a chasm. Even with the common ground of being imprisoned, it was hard to reach to him. 

“I think,” Gren said, hands folded against his stomach as he stared at the ceiling, remembering a youth where his mother had painted stars across his childhood room to count before the candle flickered out. “You just want me to perish so you don't have to listen to the sound of my voice.” 

“Then who would expedite my madness?” Runaan sighed dryly. 

“You said something earlier. That I reminded you of someone.” 

Gren sighed heavy into the silence. 

“You don't get to just, shut me out, you know,” Gren huffed. “We're down here together. Talk to me.” 

“This may surprise you, but I don't owe you personal information. I don't owe you a will to live. The sooner I die the sooner I fulfill the service to _my_ country and--”

“The sooner you leave whomever it is behind without you?” Gren finished. “What's gonna happen to them when you die?” 

Runaan, if nothing, was predictable. Gren lets the silence saddle up behind him and sleep pressed against his back. 

\----

The screaming got worse. It took all Gren had to look unaffected when Viren returned, pacing through without giving him a glance, all the while Runaan panted and hissed through his cell door, view eclipsed. 

The screaming continued long after Viren had left some days, Runaan screaming out through the pain, lashing out at Gren when he called to him. 

Gren had never heard him cry. 

He wondered what kind of hurt that was. 

\----

“I think of my mom and how she'd let me help her make the bread, even though everything I ever touched came out of the oven with the consistency of a brick.” 

Some nights, it still felt like Gren was talking more to the silence than to Runaan. The silence was doubtless a more steady companion, stroking fingers through Gren’s hair while he slept, rubbing away his morning dew tears after a fitful night or sweet dreams, only to realize he was still here. 

“You haven't told me about your family at all,” Gren accused with a laugh, eyes weary of the candle light already. “You haven't told me anything about yourself.” 

“Hard to get a word in edgewise with your constant monologue.” 

Gren grinned. Back again. 

“I've asked you plenty of questions.” 

“And they've all been irrelevant. You've promised me escape and offered me nothing but subpar conversation topics.” 

“You talk then,” Gren sighed. “I'm getting tired of probing you.” 

That wasn't exactly true, of course. 

\----

Runaan gifted him with a snort, and Gren knew enough by now to accept that as the end to the conversation. 

\----

“Must you eat so loudly?” 

“He lives!” Gren cheered through a mouthful, clanking his fork against his plate in exaggeration, half wishing Runaan could see--and be charmingly exasperated by--the celebration. 

The silence behind it was deafening, before Runaan spat out angrily: 

“I'm sorry, have they given you _utensils?_ ”

Gren nodded into the darkness of his own cell. “Can't very well pull apart food with my bare hands.” 

“You--” Runaan scoffed. “You're a moron. Have you got a fork?” 

“Uh, yeah?” Gren said, as if it were obvious. 

He could hear Runaan’s whine echoing around the dungeon.

“Pick the lock you bloody moron! Are you insane?” 

Oh. Oh. Oh my God. 

Half embarrassed he hadn't thought of it sooner, Gren rose with stumbling feet and stomped to the door, forcing one of the pegs into the keyhole, frustrated to find it didn't fit through. 

“Fu--it doesn't--it won't work.” 

“You'll have to bend the metal, fool. Can you manage that?” 

“Hey, you don't have to be so rude,” Gren protested, pouting and frustrated over the fork. “I don't see you doing anything.” 

“I'm not the one free as a bird to walk away at any time and instead chooses to wander around like a canary!” Runaan scolded so loudly, the door above them creaked open.

The dread filled up Gren’s lungs as he stared at the half twisted fork between his fingers as the stomping of the guards boots began to descend the stair. 

“What's happening down here?” 

Gren did what he did best. Shoving the utensil in his underpants, he began to save face. 

Coughing an exaggerated amount, he began banging against the wood door, making violent and desperate eye contact with the guards, pointing to his throat with frantic hands. 

“Cant!” he coughed, punching himself in the chest in what he hoped to be convincing. “Breathe!”

He watched the guards fumble with the lock, only to come in and see his food tray dumped on the floor, and Gren hunched over himself having a violent coughing fit before--and, God, let him be convincing--coughing up a spit wad onto the floor. 

“Sorry!” Gren coughed, voice hoarse from the acting alone, facing away from the guards in the dim candle light. “I was--I was choking.” 

“Perhaps they should give you less food next time. Don't wake us up again.” 

\----

“Good save,” Runaan purred once the door was firmly shut again. 

“Good information,” Gren mumbled back, still bitter about Runaan’s outburst, softened slightly after watching the guards spit at him through his cell. 

“Start filing down that fork. If we're lucky, we can escape by the end of the week.” 

Gren didn't bring up the fact that perhaps Runaan wasn't doomed to die anymore. 

Gren bends the fork and starts grinding it along the bedframe till his arms ache and his hands bleed, out of breath and panting. The next morning, the guards make a joke about the bedsprings that, had Gren the blood to spare, he might've flushed. 

After Viren’s visit, he knew he didn't want to wait as long as a week. He didn't want Runaan to go through that ever again, not one more day. 

\----

“I feel as though I should apologize for yesterday.” 

Gren’s filing ceases, panting still after the silence of the bed. 

“You're doing an excellent job,” Runaan continued, and Gren could see the countryman in his mind's eye, head bowed with humility and eyes swimming. 

“You're just frustrated,” Gren excused. “It's no biggie, bud.”

It was kind of a biggie, in all honesty. It wasn't as if Gren wasn't exhausted and frustrated. Gren wanted to give up, too, sometimes, but he hadn't. And the insinuation that he had didn't sit quite right with him. But Runaan was all he had, and they wouldn't have made it this far without him--

“Her name is Rayla.” 

The fork flew out of Gren’s hand, across the room, scattering under a table nearby. 

“Wh--” Gren’s nervous tongue stuck to the roof of his mouth. “Who?” 

Runaan sighed. Not the exasperated, exhausted tone he usually reserved for Gren. It was airy, nearing melancholy. So soft it was nearly silence. 

“The girl you remind me of. My niece.” 

Two sentences. More personal information than Gren had received in weeks. He drank it in, thirsty and excited, nervousness twinging inside his stomach. Runaan was sharing with him. 

“How's she like me?” 

He huffed a laugh, tired, sparing all the air he had for it so that Gren could strain to hear, and Gren’s own heart swelled at the gesture. 

“She’s tough. Wicked fast and an excellent fighter--still a subpar soldier. Of course, you're none of those things.” 

“Hey!” 

A joke. They'd graduated to jokes. Huh. 

“She is, however, petulant and loyal, with a heart too big for a soldier to carry,” he sighed soft. “That seems to be you.” 

For the first time, Gren was thankful for their dark separation so that Runaan couldn't see the ever embarrassing flush that crept up his neck and ears, matching the flush across his cheeks. 

“Me?” 

“Yes, Gren. Let's not play coy. I don't need to see you to know your heart is too big for your body. Nobody else would be so foolish with their trust.” 

For the first time, it was Gren that didn't reply. He filed the fork down for the rest of the night, biting down on his lip till it was raw, thinking of how to smother all these feelings until they became overwhelming.

\----

“I'm going to ask you for a favor.”

“Anything,” Gren agreed, breathless. Lying on his back in his cot, listening to Runaan breath words to life was something Gren thought he'd never grow bored of. Perhaps it was the isolation, the lack of human contact that fostered the ever foolish emotion inside his chest. 

Still, when Runaan spoke, he could imagine his dark sun tanned fingers winding through Gren’s hair, lips pressed lazily against his shoulder as he spoke. 

Oh no. 

“After all of this, if things don't go well, if you run into my Rayla--you have to promise me you won't hurt her.” 

Gren blinked. “Why would I ever hurt a little girl, especially yours?” 

A pause. “She...she has a pension for trouble. I have a feeling you'll probably cross paths, if you haven't before. I have a feeling you take promises seriously. Promise me you'll look after my girl.” 

“Anything,” Gren agreed again, unthinking, knowing already his loyalty to Runaan couldn't be broken. 

It was possible that Runaan was saying something else into the night, but it was so soft that Gren couldn't decipher. He fell asleep imagining what his lips might feel like pressed against his. 

\----

Night three proved that the now think shank could almost fit into the lock. 

“I'll be able to see you soon,” Gren breathed aloud, earning a curious but good natured laugh from across the dungeon. 

“So eager, are we? And here I was under the impression you were so enamored with yourself you couldn't possibly care what I looked like,” Runaan chuckled, making Gren’s heart clench. 

“I mean--I'm not really all that handsome,” he admitted, reaching up to stroke across his freckle and rosacea marred cheeks, feeling the grime along them. Occasionally, when Viren grew weary of the scent, he ordered jugs to be brought down. At least Gren was able to bathe himself--someone attended to Runaan, humiliatingly. 

“Oh? And you talked such big game.”

“Shut up,” Gren murmured. “What do you look like?” 

He could imagine Runaan’s lips curling into a knowing smile. “And what do you imagine I look like?” 

“Handsome,” Gren said without thinking. “I mean--your voice. You sound so...refined.” 

“Hmm,” Runaan agreed a mocking underscore sounding softly beneath it. 

“You're from the country, so I've always imagined you tall and dark...and strong.” 

“You're awfully honest when you're sleep deprived,” Runaan noted with a belated snort. 

“Shut up.” 

“No, keep going. Tell me about my eyes.” 

“I don't imagine your eyes,” Gren replied honestly, because what did he have to hide? What was there to be embarrassed about? Runaan was a faceless entity for Gren to daydream until he broke them free. 

“Oh?” 

“I imagine your lips.” 

Silence.

“Uh. I just--because of your voice?” 

\----

“And what are my lips like?” whispered into the dark. 

“Royal,” Gren agreed, staring ahead the ceiling. “Soft, normally, but chapped after all this time in the dungeon.” 

Then, another, “hmmm” just for Gren.

\----

Gren wanted to pretend he hadn't heard it. Between the smacking, the sound of something whistling through the air to land a blow against skin, followed by a half restrained grunt on the part of his cellmate. He did anything to avoid listening, because if he listened, he'd cry, and Viren would know, would find the small needle-like iron piece pressed under his small clothes and digging a raw spot into the skin of his hip. 

Still, even amid the daydream that had Runaan’s sometime summer eyes watching him as they lay out in the country, near the small farmhouse the man owned, the sounds of the princes playing rambunctious in the background with Amaya, the noise broke through. Even after he'd heard it, he wanted to keep pretending that Runaan’s tanned fingers were tracing across the red bow of Gren’s lips, eyes tracking there, intent and serious and teasing. 

But then Runaan cried out again, body seemingly split by the nose, and, unmistakable, the consonants, “Gr--ugh!” smartly cut off by another grunt, screaming through the pain. 

The beating stopped just as the panic rose up in Gren’s lungs, making him fight back on tears. Runaan had called for him. Runaan was in pain and Gren couldn't even be bothered to listen to it. 

Viren’s boots were already smacking against the pavement stones by the time Gren was fighting back the sniveling. 

He'd never been this weak before. 

He was a commander. 

“Toughen up, lad,” Viren hissed, walking by without a second glance. “The worst is yet to come--there's no need to cry over someone like him. We put their kind in their place.” 

\----

Through the tears, disguising his voice so that it sounded void of emotion, Gren promised, “Tonight.” 

“Tonight,” Runaan echoed. 

\----

They stood no chance of escape. Gren knew that. Runaan was severely injured and Gren lacked strength to pass the guards on his own, let alone protecting another person. 

Tonight was about not being shackled for once. 

Tonight was about seeing each other. 

They waited in the dark moments after the guards clicked the lock behind them, waiting with heavy breath that seemed to echo around the room like a heart, panting and palpable and heavy, even on Runaan’s end. 

Gren put his force behind the shank, pressed against the iron hole before him, and gave it a twist. 

Across the room, Runaan laughed mercilessly as the sound of the door gave way. 

“You're free,” Runaan barked with a clipped and bitter laugh. 

“I'm coming to get you. I'm bringing the water jug over, for your wounds--” 

“Let's not get ahead of ourselves now,” Runaan said, his voice oddly distant. Every orifice of Gren oozed bubbling joy, excitement over a brief moment of freedom, a chance to meet a man, one he felt was beginning to know so intimately he'd remember him forever. He'd never thought of someone that way before. A forever presence haunting the back of his mind with sometime summer eyes and dark fingertips and royal lips for showing loyalty. 

Runaan didn't sound like any of that, despite the softening he'd done for Gren over the past few weeks. He sounded nearly upset. 

He sounded scared. 

Gren had seen prisoners of war before--not that the elves ever left many, the vile creatures often killing humans on sight, soldiers and civilians alike. Perhaps Runaan was anxious to be near another human again, after so many weeks of just Viren and pain. 

Gren would be soft. Gren would be kind. He would be, for him. 

Gren’s calves ached as he slumped the distance to Runaan’s cell, body confused and disoriented to have the privilege of freedom of space. Still, the shank opened the first door to Runaan’s cell. 

“Gren, perhaps we should wait--” 

“Your wounds need tending now--”

The second door swung open, and Gren was excited to see if his theories were true about lips and eyes and fingertips and he'd daydreamed about the expression on Runaan’s face when they'd finally meet, how Gren would trace his fingertips over his jaw and promise him, like a child, like an always friend, they'd be okay. Human contact. Unconditional love. 

The torch cast little light into the cell, just enough to bathe Runaan in a dim patch of gold. 

Gren hadn't noticed the metal had fallen from his grip until he wished he'd had it in his fist. 

Runaan kept his head down, eyes up, a steady glare in place across his eyes. 

“Go on,” he hissed. “Let's say it.” 

Gren heard himself suck in a gasping breath before he realized he was hyperventilating. 

“You're an elf.” 

There was a venom, a disgust to his own voice he didn't recognize, a new emotion gripping at his heart that he'd felt before on battlefields whose names he'd forgotten. 

Hate. 

“Go on then,” he laughed--Runaan’s laugh, Runaan’s voice, Runaan’s lips, “Let's give Viren a run for his money. Go ahead and kill me.”


	2. fall from grace just to touch your face

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It was too late. 
> 
> Too late for Amaya, for his country, for Viren to ever stop this. Gren had fallen from grace long before shackles had ever been put on his wrists. 
> 
> Runaan had him, whether he wanted him or not, more than an ally. Gren wanted to follow him to the ends of the earth. 
> 
> What did war matter to prisoners?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Uh, hello Dragon Prince fandom. I genuinely expected no one to read this garbage so, wow, thanks? 
> 
> I've been inspired enough to start working on a college au (which I like much better than this story) so hopefully that will be posted in early November. Y'all are awesome. 
> 
> Enjoy more gay bois in a dungeon where nothing ever happens.

It was difficult to breathe like this. 

Gren had liked to believe that he hadn't given up, that he was loyal to his country, to the princes. But it would be a lie to deny that most of his fight for the last few weeks had come from a lilting country voice on the other side of the wall, faceless and yet so palpable that Gren fell asleep dreaming about fingers in his hair and lips against the thrumming vein of his throat. 

His accent wasn't from the country--it was from the other freaking Country. Xadia.

An elf. 

Staring at this stranger was like watching all of his dreams go up in a flash of smoke. His last will to live and fight, his last ideal that they might somehow be together in this. 

He'd been in prison with a criminal after all. 

He'd seen elves before, of course. He'd never seen one with so much exposed lilac skin with watercolor bruising trailing up his sides, ribs nearly mangled under the skin, pants ripped and bloodied at the knees. 

He'd never seen it because he didn't care too much for looking at their corpses out on the field once the battle was done. 

Still, Runaan was young, possibly the same age as Gren himself--or, he looked to be, anyway. He wasn't quite certain of their natural life spans, how they differed.

That sort of thing had never mattered before.   
Gren wanted to stumble for the shank again, to hold it in his hand between them in an attempt to keep this sort of monster back and away, even if he was chained to wall, but--

But he wasn't meeting his eye. 

This wasn't a stranger. 

This was Runaan. 

\----

Amaya would want him dead. 

“You killed the King,” Gren breathed. “You're the assassin who sent for the princes.” 

Runaan said nothing, kept his steady gaze on the floor, hair hanging over his shoulders and eclipsing the worst of the bruising. His arm had gone purple--well, purpler--with an added pressure cuff, a sort of ribbon tied there that stopped the blood flow. The skin there along with the skin around his wrists were raw and bloodied, hard to look at in so many ways. 

“Finish this, then,” he murmured, but his voice held no venom. 

He was soft. 

He was...not scared. 

Betrayed. 

Gren had promised to free him. How could he ever do that now? This was the man who'd killed the king. 

This was the man who'd asked Gren to look after his niece. A man who suffered unjustified torture day in and out, murderer no. If he'd been guilty, he should've been publicly executed. Viren had--

“Finish this!” 

“Quiet!” Gren urged, and, despite his own will, slid forward on his knees until his own chapped hand came to cover over a mouth, a sharp jaw, a proud nose. Shrouded behind locks of pearl--eyes. 

Gren was glad he'd never imagined Runaan’s eyes. 

Nothing could ever compare. 

He imagined he mirrored Runaan’s shock pretty well with wild wide eyes and slack jaw. He could bite Gren’s hand off, if he wanted. Could headbutt him for how close they were sitting, Gren’s breath ghosting over them in pants, hot despite the muggy air down in the stone room. The stone around them was red and brown, grimed with blood that belonged to Runaan and others who'd had hung to this wall before him. 

Gren pulled his hands away, breathing so hard he could scarcely think.

Lips. 

\----

“Let's get you cleaned up.” 

\----

Gren’s hands shook and he slid off his over shirt, turning it inside out and dipping the back into his water jug, placed carefully by their knees. Runaan kept his eyes downcast and to the side as Gren wiped the sweat from his forehead, leaving only clean cool strokes in their wake. 

Runaan didn't tremble. Gren didn't cry. 

He didn't kill him, either. How could he? 

\----

Sweet lilac, cracked at the corners, bloodied at the bow, swollen at the bottom lip. Proud, royal, just like he'd imagined. Small, and echoes of softness, once upon a time, despite a stern set to their countenance. 

“Why aren't you going to kill me?” he rasped.

Gren didn't answer. 

He would've. If he'd met Runaan at the edge of the forest somewhere, there would've been no talk. He'd have slaughtered him immediately. The thought of it made his blood run cold. 

Still, there were a million and one logical reasons not to kill Runaan. He still needed his help to escape. Killing him would only upset Viren and land Gren in more trouble than he'd already conjured for himself. 

He wouldn't speak aloud that he'd been dreaming about holding this man in his arms, just for human contact, just for warmth and sanity for weeks now. 

He wouldn't speak into existence the promise he made to him, cutting tight around Gren’s heart like the band across Runaan’s arm. 

“Want me to remove that?” Gren murmured, eyes tracing over the mottled arm, swollen with veins that popped blue under his skin. 

“It would be a pointless attempt,” Runaan said, eyes flittering about like a scared doe’s, enchanting Gren more each time their eyes connected across the small space, Gren’s wet hands folded neatly on his knees. “It--it may shimmy down to my wrist, though.” 

“It's cut through your skin, here,” Gren noted. “I don't want to risk infection--” 

“I'll lose the arm, anyway,” he grunted. “It's simply--”

“To lessen the pain,” Gren agreed, surprised at the sentiment. “Let me finish washing, yeah?”

\----

The Ivory soap Gren was allowed was half worn away from use, but the grime across Runaan’s skin gave way easy enough without scrubbing, watching as blemishes revealed themselves to either be clotted blood or bruising as Gren wiped the oil away with water, hands slow and nearly reverent against the lilac skin. Touching an elf. Touching Runaan. 

“That soap won't pale my skin, any, if that's what you're trying to do here,” Runaan mocked, voice shaking and bitter as Gren trailed the silken bar down the column of his throat and across his clavicle, his chest, the virgin plain of his stomach mottled with rainbow bruising. 

“Trying to get you clean,” Gren breathed, realizing he sounded equally as breathless. 

\----

This wasn't how the night should've gone. 

This was about finding an old friend and meeting a new one, a country boy of twenty three with dark eyes and tripping fingerprints.   
It shouldn't have been this. 

How did you recover from this? 

\----

Gren wiped the crusted blood away from the corner of Runaan’s mouth, and lifted the clean pitcher to his mouth. 

“Drink.”

Gren decided he didn't care so much, after all.

\----

Runaan let him wash his pearl hair, fingers working out the knots and stands and working through the soap, close enough that Runaan’s nose could brush against Gren’s navel if he so wished, but didn't. He stayed away from the horns, his thumbs brushing the crux of where they met his scalp every so often, surprised to find it smooth and strong. 

“If you moved the band,” Runaan whispered, his voice hoarse as Gren’s fingers scrubbed a lather against his scalp, just above the nape of his neck, sliding his hands down the tresses to work out the tangles. “Viren would notice. We'll simply have to wait until we can escape.” 

“When--when do you think you'll be strong enough to escape?” Gren asked, feeling suddenly absent from the whole plan. 

Runaan never planned to help Gren leave. He just needed some idiot with an overflow heart to undo his chains. His hands stilled in his hair, soap lathered up to his wrists, and instead felt the subtle rise and fall of Runaan’s shoulders as he breathed, quick and labored, lungs still sore and body still bruised. 

“That,” Runaan sighed. “Depends on whenever it is your bags are packed.” 

\----

His hair looked lovely, wet. 

“You won't unchain me, then, I've noticed?” 

Runaan’s teeth sunk into the bit of bread Gren offered him, and Gren quickly drew his hand back to his lap as Runaan swallowed the piece nearly whole. He wasn't sure how long it had been since Runaan had eaten, but he certainly still had the energy to complain about the _tasteless artifice_ that was human food. 

“I'm not going to bite your hand off,” Runaan snorted, yet obediently parted his lips with Gren offered him up another slice of apple. 

“Just worried the shackles won't lock back, is all,” Gren huffed a chuckle, hoping the red creeping up his neck wasn't visible in their dim light. Runaan’s cell was afforded no candle, so Gren had dragged half his cell's belongings in, just for the night. 

“Don't lie to me,” Runaan smiled--sharp, cutting jagged across his face like a knife, nothing like Gren imagined it would be and yet utterly enchanting nonetheless. 

He was under a spell. He had to be. 

He shouldn't still feel like this. 

“Did you think I was an elf?” Gren ventured as Runaan drank from the pitcher Gren held to his lips, murmuring out apologies when renegade water drops spilled over his lips and down his neck. 

“No, I'm not a moron.” 

“Hey!” 

Runaan managed a chuckle, and it thawed a bit the frost that seemed to have formed icebergs in his blood. 

“I knew,” Runaan sighed, head tipped back so Gren wouldn't press more bread to his lips. “I knew you didn't know, and I knew you'd be upset. I had hoped you'd kill me.” 

Gren blinked. “No, you didn't.”

Ocean eyes cut to him. “I've been begging Viren for death everyday now. I'm not bluffing.” 

“I--I know that, just--weren't you on some kind of level hoping I wouldn't care?” Gren asked, incredulously. “Wouldn't you be hoping that we could be friends because that's _all_ I could think about. You and me getting out of here and being okay. Together.” 

“And do you?” Runaan urged, lilac lips moving slow and deliberate. “Not care?” 

Gren had only ever been with boys who had eyes so dark he'd felt the solid earth and warm sun in his chest when they'd kissed him, steady and nurturing and kind. He'd never bought into that odd poetic prose that Amaya waxed on about when she got drunk, hands stumbling through signs as she listed out pretty girls with eyes so deep you could swim in them. 

There was no relaxing sometime summer blue to Runaan’s eyes, and, when Gren met them, the pull of them was strong as the tide.

There would be no swimming in this territory, this close, this far out to sea. He could only drown. 

“No,” Gren breathed, hands shaking as he pressed an apple slice against Runaan’s lips. “I think I care a little too much.” 

He didn't snatch his hand away this time, and Gren realized he hadn't been afraid of Runaan biting at him at all. 

He'd been scared of touching those lips. 

\----

“Try and sleep, save your energy,” Gren soothed as he tangled up Runaan’s hair again, hoping Viren simply assumed the servants had been along to wash him instead of the painfully obvious. He was careful to return everything to how it had been, gathering up the shank again and pressing it against his hip under his clothes. 

“I'd sleep better in a bed,” Runaan retorted, and Gren suddenly felt tears prick behind his eyes upon realizing what an ass he'd been. Runaan had been in the same position for weeks. 

“Tomorrow,” Gren promised. “Tomorrow, after the guards leave. I'll come get you and I'll stay up while you sleep.” 

He meant it this time.

\----

The screaming was different now. 

Gren felt it echo around his lungs the same way he had felt Runaan breathe against his hip. 

He could see him, now. Could imagine Viren’s every blow discoloring lavender bloom skin into something rotten and mottled, discolored by displacing his own hate into someone else. 

Yes, Runaan had killed the king, supposedly. But no one deserved this. 

\----

His own hands shook to undo the locks on Runaan’s door, the sound of their breathing filling up the silence, echoing the desperation in their own chests. 

“Hoped you'd dreamed it?” Runaan sneered with a smirk when Gren cracked the door, studying Runaan closely with weary ocean eyes. 

“Where'd he hurt you, this time?” Gren said instead, taking the first weary steps into the room, the metallic stench of blood and the bile residue of sweat assaulting Gren as he wandered in, shank held loosely in his grip. 

Runaan arched a silver brow, pretty and haughty all at once. “Haven't changed your mind and decided to kill me? Your Lord Protector might thank you for your service.” 

“Stop being a _bloody moron,”_ Gren mocked in an unremarkable impression of Runaan’s own accent, only to earn a surprisingly soft look on a strong face. 

When his eyes were that wide, face that soft, Gren could fully make out the purple markings brushed purposefully across the royal bridge of Runaan’s nose, creating a contrast for the maroon mottling across his cheeks that didn't appear to be bruising, but a red flush under lilac skin. 

“Have you got a fever?” Gren asked, stepping forward with nervous steps, eyeing warily where Runaan's bloodied knees and ripped trousers were pressed against unforgiving stone, the slick lines of sinewed muscles under skin blackened with blood beneath the surface. 

Shamefully, Gren wondered, even like this, how fast Runaan could kill him if he wanted to. He promised to unlock the shackles, and yet--

“No,” Runaan coughed, eyes suddenly on the floor. “No fever.” 

“Oh,” Gren swallowed. “Good.” 

Runaan could kill him instantly. 

Maybe that was Viren’s plan all along, to put Gren down here with this handsome stranger and let Gren effectively kill himself on his own sword, a traitor and a fool for trusting an elf so beautiful, an elf that clearly had cast a spell over him. 

This man was a murderer. He was a vile abomination with no feelings and no remorse. He'd probably killed hundreds of humans. Amaya would've killed him when she had the chance, escaped now to save her own life.

\----

A breath against his hips, Gren unlocked the shackles. One and then the other, until there was a heavy weight and a groan pressed there, arms limp on the floor as Gren’s own hands caught under them, hoisting Runaan high. 

“This is the first time my knees have been off the ground in weeks,” a voice marveled, lilting and lovely from lilac lips. 

“Then let's get you to bed.” 

\----

“You washed this,” Runaan noted, shrugging with much pain--Gren had to navigate his sleeve onto his injured arm--into Gren’s own shirt. 

“Last night,” Gren admitted. “Hung it out to dry. Hope that's okay.” 

“Of course. You weren't obligated to,” Runaan reminded him, dull, throbbing fingertips doing up the buttons of Gren’s white shirt to his own throat, covering the worst of the bruising. 

“Wanted to,” Gren said sheepishly. 

It was awkward, like this. Any courage he'd had talking to the stranger through the wall had dissipated--Runaan was an elf, free of his bonds, laying in Gren’s cot and wearing his too-wide white overshirt. What was there to say? They couldn't really be friends after this. Not really. 

Their relationship was one of codependency, needing the other to escape. 

Gren was certain Runaan would want to part ways after that. And why wouldn't he? Once reunited with Amaya, she'd waste no time laying him to dust. 

This dungeon had made Gren crazy. How else had his life turned so hellishly upside down? Living in a world where elves were not only allies, but friends with lilac lips and siren eyes? Amaya would hate him. 

Runaan, surprisingly towering and tall with bloody knees, looked rail thin in Gren’s sheer shirt. 

“I think,” Runaan said, eyes shy and fingers drumming against his thighs. “You were too hot and bothered at my immodest undress.” 

Gren, who had been trying and failing to look nonchalant and powerful against the wall, spluttered and flushed in his undershirt.   
“No!” Gren squawked, his voice embarrassingly high. “No! You're--are all elves so cocky?” 

Runaan was meeting his gaze this time. “Do all humans flush as pretty as you?” 

_Frick._

“Psh,” Gren grumbled, turning his face away from the candle, trying to shake off Runaan's knowing stare. Yes, seeing Runaan had been a curse in a million different ways. Seeing that smirk was the worst of them. “Shut up and roll your pants so that I can clean up your knees.”

\----

Runaan took off his pants. 

Logical. Really. It made sense, it did, for Gren to, uh, clean up his knees, which were bloodied and raw after weeks of grinding against stone. Runaan grunted each time Gren’s hand made a pass there. They needed tending. 

It was just, uh. 

Runaan's legs were _long_. 

Besides his knees, the ever present trembling of his thighs and calves, the pale lavender field of his legs had been spared Viren’s torture, it seemed, and, though they were tired, they were picturesque in a strong, lithe way that had Gren averting his gaze as he poured water out over his knees. 

He wore black briefs. Too snug. Not that Gren was looking. 

“You can cry, you know. I know it hurts. I won't think less of you.”

“I'm not--” Runaan began to shout through clenched teeth, before collecting himself. “I'm not going to bloody cry. I'm not an infant. It's just a little wound.” 

Gren didn't negate his truth by reminded him that the edges of his skin were growing green and black where the dirt pressed against the raw skin, just soothed more water over it in hopes to rinse it out. 

He certainly wasn't going to send Runaan back to that cell without mending his shorts, Viren noticing be damned. 

He wasn't going to lose his legs as well as his arm. 

“Fine, fine,” Gren grumbled, on his knees before Runaan, watching the last safe thing about him that wouldn't make things more awkward than they already were. 

Runaan struggled to balance Gren’s plate out on his lap, tired thighs straining, muscles quaking a bit as he attempted to break off bread with just one hand. Whether he was saving the strength there or had lost the use of his arm entirely yet was unclear, but the arm was entirely swollen and angry, the skin around the band long since broken and attempting to heal over the ribbon.

“Are all elves as tough guy no homo as you, or…” Gren mused, tying off shreds of sheets around each of Runaan's knees, urging him to hand off the plate so he could lie back. 

“It comes with leadership territory, I suppose,” Runaan huffed, letting himself be shuffled back against the cot, clean hair fanning out around the stiff pillow, giving Gren unblocked access to the view of his face. 

Softly, deep in his chest, he admitted he was handsome. 

That was never something he could say out loud. 

Besides, Runaan wouldn't have appreciated the sentiment anyway. 

\----

He would've kissed him, if he hadn't been an elf. 

So this is what the stories meant by starcrossed. 

\----

“So, Viren is…” he couldn't say torturing. He felt too real, felt like Runaan was a victim when he was already shifting uncomfortably under Gren’s care. He didn't want to make Runaan feel smaller than he already was here. “Because you're important, aren't you? You're not just some foot soldier.” 

Runaan shot his ocean eyes to the ceiling, ignoring Gren as he offered up more food. 

“I can feed myself, I'm not a total invalid,” he clipped, lifting a lip to sneer artfully. “I was the leader of the expedition that was sent to assassinate the king.” 

Gren’s vision went white. “Oh.” 

“You think less of me?” 

Did he? He should. 

But there was a warmth at his shoulder, pale moon river skin that flushed and throbbed with a pulse that signified a heart under the surface somewhere. A little girl somewhere that belonged to him, that he cared for. A home nation he felt loyal to. 

Perhaps Gren was a fool. 

And yet perhaps they were the same. 

“No,” Gren hissed, turning so that he leaned over the cot on his knees, finding wide surprised eyes on a royal face. He'd never tire of seeing it. “No. I certainly don't. I'd be a hypocrite. I've watched hundreds of your kind die--” 

“I've killed thousands of yours,” Runaan countered with a heat to his eyes that made Gren realize this was no spell. Runaan was not trying to enchant him. He never had. 

He was trying to get Gren to run. Maybe even trying to get Gren to turn, to see how quickly he'd kill him. 

Gren really didn't care. 

Even the sneer on Runaan's face was lovely and passionate and more emotion than he'd been willing to show Gren before, snarling and daring with heated ocean eyes that did nothing to dull the draw in Gren’s stomach, a voice that urged him to bring peace and goodwill by shoving forward and sealing their mouths together. 

It was too late. 

Too late for Amaya, for his country, for Viren to ever stop this. Gren had fallen from grace long before shackles had ever been put on his wrists. 

Runaan had him, whether he wanted him or not, more than an ally. Gren wanted to follow him to the ends of the earth. 

What did war matter to prisoners?

“We're the same,” Gren breathed, and this time Runaan's face didn't morph into shock, just melted away the sneer into something stern and condemning. 

For the first time, Gren realized that Runaan may have hated him for being human. Embarrassingly, it had never even crossed his mind. 

Runaan could kill him, if he wanted. 

\----

A hand reached up, steady, skimming, reverent, touching the back of Gren’s pink neck, the crescent curve if his ear, sliding a stray lock of hair back to secure it. Runaan's fingertips tripped across his skin just the way he'd imagined they would. 

“Has your sunshine hair grown to this unfortunate length, or have you always worn it this messy?” 

Gren gave a wet snort. “Says Mr. Goldilocks. Do you curl your pretty hair for formal occasions?”

They were the same. 

They were the same. 

\----

“You're sure you haven't gotta fever? Your cheeks are kinda flushed,” Gren noted, scrubbing the dirt off the knees of Runaan's pants from where he sat on the floor near the cot, watching Runaan try and fail to cover his too long legs with the blanket. 

“It's just warm,” Runaan huffed in annoyance, shooting Gren a dirty glare with glittering tide eyes, pulling Gren’s own face close again. “You're hovering too close.” 

“Shoot! Sorry, I'll move--” 

“You're allowed to swear, you know,” Runaan reminded with a rueful twist of his lips that drew Gren’s rapt interest, realizing the inner petal of them turned pale pink as they met his mouth. Lilac and rose petal lips, a bloom with the potential of bouquet kisses. “We're in prison. This is perhaps the one place you're allowed to swear.” 

“Go to sleep,” Gren urged, biting down on his own lip, turning his back to Runaan and the cot, still feeling the warmth of the man just behind him nevertheless. 

If he'd been human, Gren would've kissed him. 

He still wanted to kiss him. 

Gren had always had the problem of falling in love too fast. 

\----

“For the record, by the by,” Runaan called into the dim light, breath stirring the hair on the back of Gren’s neck and startling him abruptly; he'd thought Runaan had been asleep eons ago. “I'm not as _no homo_ as you seem to think, Gren.” 

\----

The bloom in his chest was a long forgotten feeling from a timeline he'd never lived in. Gren had always loved being in love, even unrequited, even dysfunctional, even when it made his mother cry and his father toss his bags out on the curb. 

Starcrossed, however? Starcrossed and unwanted and unrequited--this bloomed with a pain more kindred than kind. 

Kissing Runaan would repulse the other man, doubtless, even if--goodness, that couldn't have been flirting. They'd graduated to silly friendship. Gren wouldn't risk that. Kissing Runaan might even prompt the man to kill him after all. 

Gren had never been scared of rejection before, because the fun part of romance had always been the being in love itself, getting yourself drunk on feeling and hopes and dreams that there was no chance of actually obtaining so there was nothing to lose. 

Gren’s skin and hands and heart were hungry, starving for any kind of affection, any kind of contact, but they were selfish enough to demand a kind they had no business wanting. 

\----

When the hours felt as though they've stretched too long and the dungeon was no longer at freezer temperatures, Gren shook at Runaan's shoulder, the sight of him asleep more than Gren could really bear. Soft, grumpy at being woken, ocean eyes blinking up at him. How could Gren have ever thought he'd been under a spell? 

“Time already, then, warden?” he grumped, sitting up in bed nonetheless and tugging Gren’s shirt off his own wildflower shoulders, tossing it back to his owner. 

Gren put the shackles back on his wrists, attempted to ignore the hiss Runaan made as his knees made contact again with the cool stone. 

“Stop crying,” Runaan said, his tone, for once, not clipped, but something softer. “Viren will catch on if we aren't careful. We should move this night or the next, so, if you are not prepared, I suggest you become so.” 

Gren nodded, cuffing his sleeve against his face, embarrassed that he'd become so damselesque in this time alone here. This was trauma, he knew, and yet--

\----

Gren would've kissed him, if he could. 

Amaya had always said goodbyes were too good to be true.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Gasp! A chapter where nothing happened! 
> 
> I promise real plot (and some smooches) will come next chapter, but this chapter was long enough and Im so busy with school I didn't wanna make you wait too long. 
> 
> Thanks for reading my trash ♡


	3. i'm just gonna call you mine and

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Except, now, in his mind's eye, he imagined he and Runaan out in the Orchard between the steady rows of trees, eclipsed from the view of anyone else, with Gren’s back pressed into the dry dirt and Runaan's lips pressing a chaste and steady stream across each of his freckles

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This has devolved into a crack fic 
> 
> Tw: violence, swearing, homophobia

“Are you always like this?” 

Gren marveled as Runaan knelt in the middle of his cell, purpled arm tucked tightly behind his back, chest brushing the ground at the same speed as his pale moon locks before rising once more. 

One armed push-ups. What a show off. 

Gren smiled as he watched. 

“I'll have to be proficient with one arm eventually. Not all of us can fall back on our nobility and good looks,” Runaan grinned, glaring up at Gren with that look--the one where Gren was never certain if he wanted to kiss him or skin him alive. 

Gren would let him do either, if he was being honest. 

“I wish I would've known,” Runaan barked a laugh, his white canines glinting off candle light as he rose to stand, “that you blushed like that all those weeks ago. Humans have such thin skin.” 

“Mm,” Gren agreed, expression moony and dazed as Runaan crossed the few steps toward him. Bare chested. Ocean eyes. Hair disheveled and hands, wow, uh--

Runaan's pale eyebrows were arched, clearly amused, and Gren’s whole face caught fire. 

“Did you say something?” Gren clipped, eyes wide, frustrated that there was nowhere to hide in this whole dungeon. 

“I said I was wondering how much the General must miss her pretty _right hand.”_

Oh. 

“Oh, man,” Gren flushed deeper, ducking his head to his chest. “Dude--no, ew, it isn't--it's not. It's not like _that.”_

The amused shark smile on Runaan's lilac lips let him know he'd knew exactly what it was like. “Oh? That so? Don't tell me being near a woman that powerful doesn't enchant you?” 

Gren needed to wake up. This couldn't be happening. He needed a list, pros and cons, of all the ways Runaan absolutely was not coming on to him. Humans were still weird about the whole liking boys thing--how did elves even react to that sort of thing? Friendship or not, even his own brother had--

He wouldn't think about that now. Not when Runaan was smiling at him. 

They'd escape soon--Gren was smart enough know there was a large chance they wouldn't make it out alive. He wanted a good final moments, if nothing else. 

“We don't have to talk about this, if you'd like,” Runaan said, suddenly serious, stepping back from Gren--he hadn't realized the heat was there in his chest until the cold crept in. “It is not my intention to make you uncomfortable, Gren.” 

Gren’s eyes shut, overwhelmed. He remembered being at basic, in this same situation, battling himself about coming out to a boy who was looking at him the same way Runaan was and wondering if getting his ass kicked could possibly outweigh getting a kiss. 

“I think it is, though, Runaan,” Gren disagreed, daring to look up and watch the man's face go into shock at the accusation. “You're always walking around with no shirt on, exercising and throwing your weight about like someone half-devine.” 

Runaan smiled, soft, soft lips. “I think elves may just be half-devine.”

Gren huffed a laugh. What an asshole. 

“You,” Gren accused, poking a finger forward into the soft, unmarked area of Runaan's chest, warm and wet from the workout. “were designed to make me uncomfortable, you evil, evil man.” 

The dungeon was cold, but the air around Gren was so, so warm when Runaan's eyes trailed over his face, eyes flickering as if counting all the imperfections on his cheeks. 

“I'll be sure to thank Viren for my wardrobe, then,” he deadpanned, lips quirked up. “But maybe we should work on making you more comfortable, then?” 

Runaan extended his good hand between them, moonbeam pale and calloused at the tips, strong and lithe and flat all at once. Gren let his own hand tremble up to, unsure, even after ever casual touch they'd shared. 

Had Gren ever really touched an elf before? 

Did it matter, really? 

He brushed his fingertips. “Consider it a peace treaty.” 

Once Gren gave over his fingertips, Runaan conquered the rest of his hand, locking up their fingers and skimming over his palm, until the tide of his hand washed over that too, up to his wrists, and Gren let him. Gren let him. Gren let him. 

“We should go to bed, yes?” 

Gren would hear that voice in his sleep every night until he died. Every night until he died, until the tide ran back to sea. 

\----

“You seem tired, Commander. Not sleeping well?” 

Gren went somewhere else when Viren was hurting Runaan. 

Not physically--he couldn't, not even with their tool, worn further with use, digging into his side. He couldn't believe he once felt so foolish when Runaan had berated him for nothing thinking of filing down his utensils. 

It was the greatest gift he'd been given. 

His brain didn't daydream of the imaginary country boy with dark eyes and lips that poured poetry over them both in steady streams that washed out Gren’s hair and fell between his shoulder blades, soaking into his skin warm and cool all at once. His smile felt hazy on his face. He burned, he froze. Runaan's chapped fingertips had done that to him. 

It was selfish, to daydream with a background soundtrack of sorrow, Runaan screaming back at Viren between hits. They didn't talk about what Viren wanted. Gren knew he should've. His was still a commander--he needed to be concerned for his country. And yet, at night, Runaan never seemed to want to talk about the new bruises blooming across his cheeks, mottling under his twin markings. Gren didn't like to think about, either. Selfish, he knew, and yet--it was for the best. 

Viren didn't need to see him cry. 

So Gren’s mind went to a grange Amaya used to take the boys after their mother died in the early summer, once the fruit was good, and Gren would tote Ezran around in his arms because being someone that a child admired made Gren feel a whole lot less broken. 

Except, now, in his mind's eye, he imagined he and Runaan out in the Orchard between the steady rows of trees, eclipsed from the view of anyone else, with Gren’s back pressed into the dry dirt and Runaan's lips pressing a chaste and steady stream across each of his freckles. His flat hands, four fingers, pressed onto his chest. They'd stay on his chest. Runaan was a refined gentleman, afterall, with lilting dulcet tones and once they'd tire of kissing--if such a thing were ever possible--he'd drag Gren beneath a tree and let him lean against his chest and recite out stories and poems and songs that were all vibrant and new to Gren from a culture he'd never experienced. Gren could hear his heart beating, warm against his cheek, and Runaan might kiss the crown of his head and make a joke about his unkempt hair. Gren would kiss him silent. 

Gren ended up crying, anyway, because it was so, so far from this prison cell, so far from the Runaan who tolerated him, who very well could be toying with Gren to earn his trust. Gren had to acknowledge that. Amaya would want him to stay on guard. 

And yet. 

“I'd be sleeping better out on my assignment,” Gren replied, voice surprisingly hard--enough so that Viren blinked back in response. 

He hadn't realized how much he hated Viren until now. Gren could see the blood on his knuckles, crusting around the rings on his fingers. Even in despite of Viren’s enraged countenance, Gren felt a calm wash over him. What power did Viren have anymore? They would leave tonight. 

And Viren would never Runaan ever again. Not while Gren was here. 

\----

He blinked and simultaneously missed the fist that cracked up under his ribs, making Gren cry out more in shock than the heavy throb of pain he felt there. His body, against the chains, could do little to shrink away, and Gren bit down on his lip to hold back a cried protest. 

When he drew his head up, Viren was leaned close, the smell of his breath bogged against his nose. 

“You'd do well to remember your place, you overgrown lap dog, if you want to live to see the dawning of the new kingdom.” 

Gren wouldn't give him a reply, and so he sat for the rest of the night with Viren’s spit cooling along his cheek, dripping like bile down his neck. He didn't cry, for once, even if the spit made him want to snivel. 

“Remember who your real allies are, Commander. Pity isn't a pretty color on you.”

He had a job to do.

\----

“Did he hurt you?” Runaan called into the darkness after the door had slipped closed, with an emotion Gren couldn't recognize in his voice. Panic? 

“I'm fine,” Gren gritted out. 

It wasn't fair to complain about something that Runaan had endured tenfold everyday for weeks now. He wouldn't do that to him. 

_“Gren,”_ he urged, voice edging something akin to desperation. “Did he hit you?” 

Gren nodded into the darkness, knowing full well Runaan couldn't see him. White lies. 

“He, uh--he just spit on me, is all.” 

“Gren.” 

Gren huffed a sigh. “He didn't hit me hard, Runi.” 

\----

In the darkness, gazing upon Runaan's cell door, a monster growled out from within. A relative of Silence, come to stay for the weekend. 

“I'm going to fucking kill him,” Runaan swore. “before he ever touches you again.”

Gren gave a weak laugh, emotion bubbling up his throat. He loved the monster. All the fairy tales were true, true, true. 

“Don't swear,” Gren huffed, his heart full. 

He loved the monster. 

Maybe the monster loved him, just a little, just enough, too. 

\----

Gren washed his face quickly after the guards left.

They needed to go. 

\----

Runaan fell around him the second his shackles were off, gripping Gren tight to his chest with one good arm, and Gren let himself melt into it, dissipate into the ocean of his skin, feeling Runaan's hair press against his cheek. 

“You're okay?” Runaan mumbled against the crown of his skull.

“You're one to ask,” Gren sighed in reply, pulling back enough to trace a knuckle over Runaan's hard jaw, mottled and swollen from abuse, and his ocean eyes closed tight at the touch, pulling Gren in with the tide. 

His lips shook, excitement bubbling so sharply he thought little of pressing his face into Runaan's shoulder. “You're ready to go, then?” 

This was it, then. No more dungeon. No more darkness, no more fear. They could go to Amaya together and fix this whole revolt, save the princes, save Runaan's arm and find his little girl--

Time to go.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was supposed to be longer WHOOPS. Also wasn't proof read. It's been a long semester folks lol thanks for reading

**Author's Note:**

> Bonus points to anyone who laughs at my unfunny Shakespeare jokes 
> 
> Again, probably another shorter chapter after this and this will all be done. 
> 
> Thanks for reading ♡


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